


Who We Are

by KarieSenkow (MukatKiKaarn)



Series: Crossroads: Tales From the 7th Restricted District [1]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Giant/tiny, Interspecies, Original Character(s), Original Universe, Romance, Size Difference, Vore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MukatKiKaarn/pseuds/KarieSenkow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College student Aleksa Kosev wants to reach out and support her online friend, Iriyana. Little does she know, Iriyana has quite a big secret that she’s keeping from her classmate and crush…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who We Are

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt from my spouse, who wanted to see me write a story where ‘a girl has a long-distance relationship online, only to discover that her lover is actually a giant naga.’ Luckily, I had two characters who suited those roles perfectly.

“If you’re not actually going to use the thing, I can just take it back to the store.”

Aleksa Kosev’s head turned sharply towards the pink-haired man leaning against the door frame. She sighed and opened the package, staring at her reflection in the polished metal of the laptop’s lid. Everything her brother said came out in the same irate tone; however, she could see the smile on his face as easily as she could see her own, betraying that he had no intention of taking the computer back to the store. She looked back up at him, her hands still on the box to make sure it was real. “This is way too nice a computer for me.”

“Just because we’re Kosevs doesn’t mean we’re stuck with second-hand goods for the rest of our lives.” For a moment, she caught a glimpse of her older brother’s face softening, a hint of a genuine smile for a split second. She thought back, wondering if she’d ever seen Kolya smile before. “Mama and Papa are proud that you’re here, as proud as they were for all of us.”

“Yeah, but you’re a physicist, Vesna’s a lawyer, Niko’s a rabbi and Sima’s mixes records for every up and coming band this side of town.” She shrugged. “I feel like I fell a bit short.”

“Give me a break. You’re doing what you’re passionate about, just like the rest of us.”

She stared again at the laptop, still resting in its box. Shredded wrapping paper lay opened around it like the petals of a blooming flower. “It’s an AyaCorp system,” Kolya said, watching as she pulled the machine out of its packaging.

“I can see that,” she said, tapping a finger against the logo embossed into the computer’s lid.

Kolya’s face returned to its customary grimace arms crossing over his turtleneck sweater. “Let me finish. Ryngo assured me that particular system was their best model for design work. Of course,” he said, glancing sideways into space, “he’d probably sooner jump out his office window than describe an AyaCorp product as anything but ‘the best.’”

“He’d probably say the same about you,” Aleksa said, unable to stifle her giggling at memories of her brother and his fiance having their picture taken with the rest of the Kosev family. Ryngo always looked composed, suave, and absolutely in control in the media; seeing him kneeling on the door, concentrating as though thrown into the biggest decision of his life while trying not to flick a dreidel at someone’s head was so heart-warming. It was easy for her to see why Kolya loved him.

Her older brother, though, groaned at this suggestion. “You’re making Ryngo sound like a sap. He’s not that sentimental.”

“He’s so cute, though!” She caught her voice coming out nearly in a whine. She bit her lip, coughing for a moment to take the edge off her voice before continuing. “Everyone loved him at Hanukkah. You two really should come over more often. Petar hardly comes by anymore, and you know it’d make Mama and Papa happy to see you both again… Mama especially. She really just loves Ryngo…”

“I know…” Kolya tried his best to look at everything else in the dorm besides his sister’s face, his gaze eventually connecting with his wristwatch. “I need to head back downtown. I’m supposed to be meeting with the vam…” He swore under his breath and corrected himself. “With _Dr. Rosenkrentz_ ,” he said, emphasizing his boss’ name, “about a project I’m working on for Nexus.”

“Let me guess,” she said while slicing the edge of her ID card through the plastic bag covering the laptop. “Super-top-secret-hush-if-you-talk-about-it-they-might-kill-us-both work.”

Kolya laughed as he pushed himself away from the wall. “Yeah, something like that. That’s why you need to stop asking so many questions about what I do at work when I come to see everyone.”

Before he could open the door, Aleksa stopped him, Kolya gasping as her arms wrapped around his chest, nearly crushing the breath from his lungs. “Thank you so much,” she said, voice muffled as it pressed into his sweater. “Thank you, both of you.”

“What’s a big brother for?” He shrugged, trying to pry his arms out of his sister’s embrace. “Try not to have too much fun with it, alright?”

~

Meanwhile, on the other end of Crossroads, two other siblings were having a very different conversation. Theirs, however, was not proceeding quite as pleasantly as the one Aleksa shared with her brother.

“Do you really,” said one of the two sisters, nearly spitting out each word as the muscles in her face tensed to match those in the rest of her body, “need to eat like that in front of me?”

Her sister sat up slowly from the couch she was reclining on, breasts shifting over her rib cage as gravity pulled them into their natural place on her chest. Two, kicking legs stuck out from a smile ringed by pink lips, while long, green hair brushed against her shoulders.

The green-haired woman stuck her neck out, a long, forked tongue emerging from her mouth, coiling around first one leg, and then the other, before wrapping around them both like the loop of a lasso. With one swift motion, the muscle pulled the last trace of her victim inside, lips smacking against one another behind him.

She smirked and sat up, pressing the struggling human against one cheek, then the other. Her sister thought she could see the impression of her prey against her skin, thrashing his limbs against the unbreachable walls of her mouth. With one flick of her head, her treat was pushed back into her throat. The woman’s throat twitched, a barely noticeable bulge that descended, out of sight, into her chest.

Deniyana smiled, brushing a long bang of green hair out from over one of her eyes. “I’m sorry, what was that? I was eating.”

Iriyana hissed, her fists tightening to either side of her hips. Her tail whipped across the floor, propelling her forward over the heated stone until her hands struck the back of the couch her sister lay draped over. “You are absolutely barbaric! Cough that man up, now!”

Instead, her sister spat in her face, the smirk on her face growing wider as she dropped back onto the sofa cushions, draping the length of her tail over the arm. “Oh, the horror of fulfilling my natural role as a predator.” She raked her hands through her hair, tangling it into a mess of curls. “‘Look at me, I’m Iriyana! I’m a pathetic freak who thinks she’s a human!’”

“I’m serious; spit him out!”

Deniyana rested a hand over her gut, still smiling up at her sister. “No way. He’s my snack. I found him fair and square.”

Iriyana snarled and grabbed her sister by the jaw, golden eyes staring down into her sister’s as she pulled her up off the couch. “Cough him up! Now!”

“Don’t want to,” Deniyana said. She twisted out of her sister’s grip, dropping back onto the couch cushions. The weight of her body bowed the seat’s frame for a moment, the metal groaning as it tried to accommodate her body settling onto it. She crossed her arms over her breasts. “And don’t care.”

Iriyana turned her back on her sister, hands tugging at the bottom of her tunic as she moved around the room. The TV mounted to the wall across from the couch lit up at Deniyana’s command, channels flashing by on the screen in rapid-fire succession. “It’s still disgusting,” she said, navigating into the kitchenette, pouring tea from a pitcher stored in the refrigerator.

“And perfectly legal,” Deniyana called from the living room.

“I don’t care if Nexus says that it’s okay for us to prey on the Otherkind living in the Garden, and I don’t care how much you pressure Wehttam into letting you prey on guests that go wandering off.” She slithered back into the living room, staring down at her sister as she moved past the couch. “It’s still vile.”

“It’s what we do.”

“In the jungle!” Ice clinked in her glass as she turned, her tail bumping into the wall behind her. “We live in a city!”

The TV picture settled onto a lurid scene of two individuals— their sexes were unclear from the tangle of flesh she could see on screen— in the midst of making love; a sound of satisfaction rose from Deniyana’s throat. “In a jungle that’s in a city.”

“We’re supposed to be more civilized that this!” Iriyana blushed at the sexual display on the television and looked away. “We should act more civilized than this!”

Deniyana didn’t bother with sitting up; he sister could hear a wet sound and retreated further towards the hallway leading out of the living room. “It’s funny, really,” Deniyana said, “You don’t give a damn about that orange-tailed girl and all those mouse boys she eats. Or the stripped boy that gobbles up fairies like they’re popcorn.” The green-haired naga made another noise of pleasure at thoughts Iriyana preferred not to know about.

Iriyana’s mouth flapped silently, her mind unable to summon up words to respond to her sister, until a loud buzzing cut through the room. Deniyana rolled her body on top of the sofa, smirking at the sight of the phone rattling across its surface. “Your girlfriend’s calling,” she said before returning her attention to the television.

Slithering across the room, Iriyana kept her back to her sister as she snapped the phone up in her hand. “She’s not my girlfriend,” she said before disappearing into the hallway. “She’s my classmate.”

~

Aleksa sighed in relief as Iriyana’s voice came through on her phone. She settled down on a bench along the outer ring of the main quadrangle at Crossroads University, facing back towards the clustered halls of the college campus and the towering skyline of downtown Crossroads. The long lines of those shadows cut across quad, sweeping from one side to the other over the course of the day. “Took you long enough,” Aleksa said, pulling her feet up onto the bench with her, leaning back against her backpack. “I was starting to wonder if you were hibernating or something.”

The was the sound of a door shutting loudly, followed by Iriyana’s sigh. “Sorry. My sister’s being a pain…”

“Trust me, I know how that is.” Aleksa laughed. “I’ve got some news that should cheer you up, though: my brother and his fiance just bought me a laptop!”

“That’s pretty cool,” Iriyana said, her voice seeming to brighten. “Though, I’m not really sure why that would cheer me up in particular…”

“You’ll see; it’s a really awesome system, state of the art, the whole nine yards. It’s got everything you could possibly imagine.” She couldn’t help her smile, even though she knew Iriyana couldn’t see it. “Including a built-in high definition video camera, so I thought…”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, longer than she expected. “…you thought?”

“I thought we could use it to see one another?”

The woman on the other end of the phone seemed to choke on her words for a moment; Aleksa’s smile slowly seemed to fade. “I mean… if you’re comfortable with that. I’ve never even thought of it before. You’ve never really said why you only take remote classes…”

“I’m… sort of home-bound,” Iriyana said, her voice quiet. “I wouldn’t be able to get around on campus. It’s easier to take the online classes…”

Aleksa winced, cursing under her breath at her own obliviousness. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t… I’ve never even thought to ask.”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry.” Iriyana sighed; there was the sound her settling down onto a chair, then that of something dragging across a surface. “It’s something I’ve never really felt the need to mention when we were chatting in the past.”

“If you’re not comfortable,” Aleksa said, her voice low. “If you’re not comfortable being in front of a camera…”

“I don’t know. I… I’ll need to think about it. I don’t even know if my computer has the ability to record video like that.” The line fell silent for a moment, Aleksa barely hearing the sound of Iriyana breathing on the other end. “I can… I can have a look in a bit, and text you to let you know. You get out of class just after 6 this evening, right?”

Aleksa nodded. “That’s right, six o’clock. Just send me a message and I’ll check when I get out of class. But Iriyana…”

“Yes?”

“You don’t have to do this. If you’re not comfortable, or you’re not…” Aleksa leaned forward, resting an elbow against her knees, catching her forehead against her fingers. “Damnit, I’m sorry. I didn’t think this would be something so uncomfortable for you. I’m so sorry.”

“Aleksa, it’s okay. I’ll think about it. We’ll talk about it later today.”

The two said their goodbyes, Aleksa staring at the phone’s blinking display for several moments after her friend hung up. It’s nothing, she told herself. Iriyana was probably just nervous, and everything would be okay. With a deep breath, she stuffed her phone into her backback and pushed to her feet, starting off towards the campus’ industrial arts building. She kept repeating it over again in her head: it was probably nothing to worry about.

~

Iriyana stared at the machine sitting on the desk in her bedroom, particularly the lens set into the top of the monitor’s frame. It did have a camera; of course it had a camera, she told herself. The computer, like everything else inside the gigantic underground apartment, was state-of-the-art, built by AyaCorps with hardware designed specifically for a creature of Iriyana’s size.

She sighed, tilting and turning the monitor as she watched the preview image on screen shift around. Her tail curled tight around her chair, her hands carefully adjusting the screen until any trace of her serpentine lower body disappeared from view.

She wasn’t ashamed of who— or what, for that matter— she was. The prospect of telling her best friend— her only friend— that she was a gigantic monster roughly the size of most of the buildings on campus seemed like more than the other girl could handle. Maybe she wouldn’t think anything of it. Aleksa was young, part of a generation in Crossroads growing up alongside the city’s recently revealed Otherkind population. She might not think anything at all of her friend belonging to a species of man-eating predators.

She shook her head. Then again, maybe she would.

An icon at the bottom of screen flashed again, informing her that Aleksa was trying to connect to her computer. Adjusting the camera one last time, Iriyana held her breath, opened the video chat, and clicked the button to accept the call.

Her first thought was of how adorable the girl on the monitor was.

The video feed showed Aleksa with almost life-like clarity; if Iriyana didn’t know better, she would have thought she was looking through a glass and that the girl in the picture was sitting right across from her. Aleksa sat huddled on her bed, a cluster of blankets piled behind her like the back of a chair, dressed in an oversized sweatshirt and pajama pants. Hand-printed posters in bold type covered part of the wall behind her, announcing bands at this and that dive. Her smile seemed to span her rounded face as she leaned towards the camera on her side.

“Hello,” Aleksa said, waving at the camera. Her fingers bumped against the laptop, muffling the microphone for a moment. “Sorry about that. Can you hear me okay there?”

Iriyana sputtered for a moment, then laughed and waved back at her. “Sorry! I guess I spaced out for a moment. I can hear you just fine.”

“I know the feeling; I’ve checked out a couple of times during lectures. Was a bit embarrassing when the teacher called on me… anyway! You look cute as hell, Iri. I wouldn’t have guessed you had blue hair. Is it natural?”

The naga laughed, twirling a curl of blue hair around one finger. Given the genetic diversity of Crossroads, she thought, it was a perfectly reasonable question. “All natural; it’s a family trait, I think, though I barely remember my parents.” She balked, realizing that might seem odd; as far as the girl knew, she was maybe a year or two older than her, and not a century or so as the case actually was. “They… I lost them when I was very young.”

“I’m sorry… I’d hug you, but that’s not really possible…”

You’re telling me, Iriyana thought. “I’d rather not dwell on it. What about your own? Pink’s a pretty intense color…”

“As natural as yours,” Aleksa said, and laughed. “Though I feel bad for my one of my older brothers. His is flamingo pink… at least mine’s not that bright.”

Iriyana fell forward, laughing; her elbow hit the desk, catching her from knocking her head into the monitor. “Poor guy!”

“He hates it, and we never let him live it down.” Aleksa smiled broadly at her, leaning up closer until her face filled the video feed. “That’s what little sisters do, after all.”

The pink-haired girl sat back, reaching behind herself to straighten the blankets and pillows piled around her. “Your place looks really nice, by the way. Beats my dorm by a mile and a half… they ended up sticking me in one of the older dorms this term.”

“Oh, yeah… I remember you saying that in chat before.” Aleksa never failed to keep her up to date with the comings and goings of her life. Iriyana knew about her every class, every person she knew, every detail of every day. She never grew bored of it— the world outside the 7th might as well exist on another planet for her, and Aleksa was her only connection to that alien environment. She hung on the girl’s every word, painting a picture in her mind of her friend’s life. “They just built our apartment not too long ago. Brand new building, state-of-the-art everything.”

“Pretty sweet. Where’s it at? My older sister works for one of the construction firms downtown.” Aleksa shrugged. “Well… she does legal stuff for them, but she might have heard about the project.”

Iriyana bit her lip; people knew the 7th Restricted District existed, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier to talk about. Its reputation as a dangerous, lawless, and often fatal neighborhood to stumble into made it something she was hesitant to mention. “It’s out in Stackton Distict,” she said, which at least wasn’t entirely a lie. “Big, loft-style place. My sister and I share it together.”

“I was wondering who I always hear in the background when I call you…”

“Yeah,” Iriyana said. She glanced towards her bedroom door, making sure that Deniyana wasn’t about to come barging in. She’d locked the door for some measure of privacy, but wouldn’t put it past her sister to try and break it down out of spite. “She never really shuts up.”

“That sounds pretty familiar, too.” Aleksa rolled her eyes, glancing at something Iriyana couldn’t see. “Sounds like you need to get away from her for a bit.”

“Don’t I wish…”

“Look, I know that you’re… I don’t want to pry and ask why you can’t leave home, but maybe I could come there sometime? We could kick your sister out for a night and just curl up and watch a movie together. I’ve got a hell of a collection here…”

Iriyana drooped, laying her head against the palm of one hand. It sounded wonderful, just laying there with her friend, sharing a bowl of popcorn and a movie. Of course, any couch that was big enough for Aleksa was probably no bigger than her own hand, and the human girl would easily fall between the cushions of one big enough for herself. “I just… I don’t know about that…”

“You don’t have anything contagious do you? As long as that’s not it, I don’t see what the problem could be…”

The problem, Iriyana thought, is that you might end up in my sister’s stomach. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. Not right now.”

“Well… we’ll have a virtual movie night.” Aleksa shrugged, the picture jostling as the laptop shifted atop her legs. “Sorry about that. I could set the movie up on the computer and share the video feed between us. My brother Sima showed me how to do it on his computer before. I know it’s not the same, but we could try that.”

“I…” Iriyana leaned her cheek against her palm, feeling warmth under her skin. “I think I’d like that.”

“We’ll call it a date, then.” Aleksa stuck her tongue out at her. “I’ll pick something good, though I’ll warn you up front, most of my favorites are something of a downer.”

“I’m sure I’ll…”

Iriyana’s bedroom door banged against its frame, startling her back into her seat. “Sorry,” she said, swearing under her breath as she glanced back at the door behind her. “Sister’s being a pest. I’ll call you back later, okay?”

“Iri, if you just need to get up for a moment…”

“I can’t, I don’t know when… I’ll call back later! I’m sorry!” She shut the connection before Aleksa could respond, waiting for the camera’s ready light to dim before shoving herself back onto her tail.

“The hell are you talking to?” Deniyana asked when she finally opened the door. The green-haired naga slumped sideways to lean on the doorframe. “Or have you finally gone completely bonkers, cooped up in here all the time?”

“My friend. I was talking to my friend.” Iriyana’s body tensed as she spoke, rising up higher on her tail until she stood the slightest bit taller than her sister.

“Ah,” Deniyana said with a smirk, “your girlfriend.”

“My friend,” Iriyana repeated, and started to move through the doorway, urging the other naga to slide back into the hallway. “We were chatting together over the computer. Do you mind?”

Deniyana looked around her sister and into the room at the brightly lit computer screen. “You can talk to be people with those things?”

Iriyana groaned as she continued forward, pulling the door shut as soon as her tail was clear of the entrance. “Yes, you can talk to people with ‘those things.’ If you actually turned the one in your room on, maybe you’d have figured that out by now.”

“Maybe if I were a human-loving freak like you, I’d actually give a damn about junk like that.” Deniyana said, crossing her arms over her bare chest.

Iriyana started to slither past her, shaking her head. “Don’t give me this nonsense again.”

Before Iriyana could move past her sister, though, Deniyana’s arms shot out, grabbing her by her tunic’s sleeves. Deniyana rushed against her, shoving her back into the hall, the blue-haired naga’s vision blurring as the back of her head struck the wall. “Look at you!” Her sister said, spitting in Iriyana’s face. “Look at you! You’re absolutely pathetic!”

“Let go of me!” Iriyana twisted from side to side, hearing the fibers in her clothes straining against the weight of her body. “Deni, let go!”

She cried out again, red flashing over her eyes as Deniyana threw her back into the wall again. The whole hallway shook from the blow, Iriyana’s tunic tearing halfway down its length. 

“You tell me I’m disgusting?” Deniyana’s voice hissed as she yelled at her sister. “You’re the one playing make-pretend with your human friend! You’re the one who wears their clothes, likes their favorite things, uses their technology… fuck, if you had a way to give yourself legs instead of a tail, you’d be on it in a heartbeat!”

Deniyana lunged at her, pressing her face against her sister’s as Iriyana again twisted away from her. “Look at me!” Deniyana said, opening her mouth wide over her sister’s eyes. Saliva dribbled off of her forked tongue, her fangs cold as they pressed against Iriyana’s skin. “If I thought I could fit you in there,” Deniyana said, her breath hot and oppressive in her sister’s face, “I’d make you share that particular part of being human, too!”

Iriyana growled and threw her head at her sister, the green-haired naga crashing into the opposite wall from the recoil. The pull of her hands breaking free from Iriyana’s shirt tore it the rest of the wall, the fabric sliding off her shoulders and onto the floor to either side of her tail. Iriyana felt cold, exposed, her arms instantly wrapping over her chest even though the only other person in the room was as bare as she now was.

“You’re disgusting,” she said, shrinking away from Deniyana.

The other naga held her head as she crept along the hall, the other hand dragging across the wall as she made her way back to the nest she’d made on the couch. “Same to you,” she said, and spat at her sister again before slinking around the corner.

~

“So, what do you think? ‘The Bittersweet of Dawn’ then? Is that a good pick for a first movie?”

Kolya stared back at his sister through the video window on her laptop, rubbing his forehead with thumb and pointer finger. “I think so… Ryngo and I went and saw it at a festival of vintage movies, and we both liked it. The middle gets pretty depressing, but the ending’s a good one.” He glanced down at a mug, tilting it towards himself before frowning and pushing it away again. “You two having some sort of date?”

She shrugged, stuffing a forkful of pancakes into her mouth. “I guess it is. Last night was the first time we’ve really seen each other face-to-face, so it seems a bit sudden to call it a ‘date’.”

“It doesn’t have to be a romantic sort of date, you know.”

“We’re watching a romantic movie.”

Kolya shrugged. “I thought all girls did that, though.”

“Not all the time,” she said, frowning at her brother through the screen.

Kolya looked into another coffee cup, frowning again as he set it aside. “Okay, well, you’ll have to excuse me for not knowing how to be a girl.”

“Right, right,” Aleksa said, frowning at the clock displayed at the bottom of her screen. She pushed the laptop aside, making sure that the camera was facing the wall before she started getting dressed for her morning class. “I’m just worried about her. She said she’s home-bound, but she’s never really said why, and she never seems to see anyone but her sister. And she doesn’t sound all that pleasant to be around, to be honest.”

“Are we talking annoying-unpleasant like Niko,” Kolya said, “Or crazy-lunatic-unpleasant like our asshole of an oldest brother?”

“I’m not really sure; I don’t know the particulars. I’m going to say more Petar than Niko, though. She’d be laughing more if it were the other way around.”

“Well. Shit.”

“I just don’t want her to feel like she’s alone, Kolya.” She pulled a shirt on over her head, turning the laptop back around to face her. “Not with someone like that around her.”

“Did I really drink all of these…” Kolya shook his head, then looked back up at the camera. “Sorry. Thing is, though, without knowing exactly where she is, there’s not much you can do. You have her phone number though, right? I remember you texting her back and forth during Hanukkah.”

“I do, but that’s not the same as being there with her.”

“Maybe things will change, and she’ll ask you to come there, or if she can stay with you. Just keep your door open for her.”

“You’re being remarkably helpful. Are you sure you’re my older brother?”

“Shut the hell up.”

Aleksa laughed. “That sounds more like the Kolya I know.”

“The hell with you. Don’t you have class to go to?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll let you know how the date goes.” She smiled and waved before shutting the laptop. “Talk to you later!”

~

The end credits to Aleksa’s movie rolled across their screens, Iriyana leaning on her elbow, face lit from the glow radiating from her monitor. The two men in the film had, after overcoming resistance from their peers on either side of the front, found one another amid the drama of the war-torn city. With buildings crumbling around them and the distant echo of gunfire, the two lovers embraced and swore to abandon the pointless conflict and seek a new life worlds away from the nightmare they had found one another in.

Iriyana sighed, running fingertips back through the curls of her hair, the feathered locks landing back against the skin above her eyebrows. “Every time,” she heard Aleksa say over the chat connection, her voice breaking as she wiped away a tear. “Every time, the ending just gets me, right in the heart.”

Iriyana smiled, coils shifting under the blanket meant to hide them. “It’s just so beautiful…”

The screen flickered and shifted back to the camera facing Aleksa; the young woman was dressed in her pajamas, a thin t-shirt leaving most of her arms bare while warm, thick pants covered legs half-tangled in her own sheets. The naga’s heart fluttered, surprised by just how sweet her friend looked. Part of her yearned to curl up with her; she bowed her head quickly, hoping to hide the blush covering her cheeks.

“Iri? Are you okay?”

Iriyana looked up, started. She could still feel her heart trembling and wondered if the lovers in the movie they shared felt the same when they first held each other and kissed in the rain the fell through the shattered roof of the bombed out house they hid in. “I…” she said, rubbing her face, trying fruitlessly to cool her skin. “I’m alright. I’ll be alright.”

“I mean, if you’re all bothered from the film,” Aleksa said, giggling, shaking slightly at her own laughter, “I completely understand.”

“No!” Iriyana bolted back from the screen, grabbing the blanket to keep it over her tail. “No, no, that’s not… I mean… I mean, they were quite handsome and the scene where they first… but that’s not…”

“Oh shit, I’m sorry!” Aleksa covered her mouth, trying to make herself stop giggling. “I’m so sorry… I’m so… that was way too personal, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that.”

“No it’s really okay, I just..”

“We are being really awkward.” Aleksa laughed, leaning in towards the camera as she pushed her bangs out of her face. “This is like something right out of a movie ourselves, here.”

“Yeah,” Iriyana said, still unable to bring herself to look straight on at the camera on her side. “It is, isn’t it?”

The line was silent for a while, Aleksa moving around on top of the bed, shifting to lay on top of her belly. “Iriyana,” she said, sounding much calmer, much steadier this time; all sense of laughter had quieted itself. “Do you have a crush on me?”

Iriyana was left speechless. Did she? It certainly seemed like she did; from everything she read, the shows she’d seen and movies she watched, she was sure this was what love felt like. In nearly two centuries of life, she’d never been in love, never felt an attraction— her own species had been hunted down nearly to extinction in the sewers beneath Crossroads by the time she reached maturity. She’d never known the love of another naga, and while her own sister often shared intimacies with the smaller male that lived in the Garden with them, she’s never felt attracted to any of the other creatures that lived around them. 

“Iri?”

“I…” Iriyana said, sputtering out her words. What could she tell her? “I don’t know. I don’t know what this feels like.”

“You’ve never been in love?” Aleksa blinked. “Ever?”

“No, I…” She felt like she would double over, her heart beating faster than even when her sister attacked her the day before. “I’ve never… I just never really thought…”

“Iriyana.” Aleksa’s eyes closed; Iriyana could see her chest contract tightly beneath her shirt as the girl on the screen breathed in. “I’m coming there to see you.”

“Wait! You can’t!”

“I know that you’re home-bound, and I know that you won’t tell me why. And I understand that.” Aleksa sat up, carrying the laptop up with her. “I don’t know if it’s an illness, or if you can’t move or… or what the case might be… and I know your sister is crazy, but I know crazy, Iri. I grew up in a house of crazy people.”

“Not crazy like Deni is.” Iriyana pressed a hand to her chest, sure of herself that the organ was about to tears its way free of her ribs. “You can’t be around her, Aleksa, she’s a sociopath…”

“I am coming there, to you.” She pointed a finger at the screen, frowning at Iriyana. “I don’t care what it takes, or what I have to do to get there or who I have to strangle to get information. I am coming to be there with you. You need someone, Iri, and what kind of friend would I be to let you down like that?”

Tears started to well in Iriyana’s eyes. “Aleksa, please, don’t do this!”

The video feed went dark as Aleksa snapped the lid to her laptop shut, the connection shutting off moments later when the laptop on the other end powered down. Iriyana sunk back into her chair, afraid and hoping the young woman didn’t have the means to follow through on her threat. She had no way to know where she was, she told herself, closing her eyes. Surely, she didn’t.

~

Kolya Kosev ignored the knock on his door at first. He was used to Nexus personnel coming to badger him for information and updates, as he was notorious throughout that massive corporation for never responding to e-mail. Simon, the child-like vampire he reported to, was often the most frequent visitor, and the most often turned away with loud, angry swearing. Ryngo, his fiance, came in second, often coming to make it clear to Kolya that yelling at Simon was insubordination.

He looked back down at his terminal, trying his best to tune the knocking out when it came again. When the third set of knocking was joined by his cell phone rattling across the top of his work table, he groaned and gave up, stalking across his downtown lab to throw open the door Aleksa was busy beating down.

“How the hell did you get up here?” he asked.

Aleksa shrugged, trying to look around Kolya and into his office, annoyed as her older brother kept stepping in front of her line of sight. “I think your receptionist has a crush on me.”

“Great.”

Kolya muttered to himself and finally stepped aside to return to his work table. Aleksa looked around at the large, open laboratory. A massive array of computers hummed as they stood lined up along one of the walls. What took her breath away, though, was the massive glass work table that her brother walked towards, holographic images floating above its surface like soap bubbles. “I’m allowed to see this stuff,” she said, following Kolya into the room. “Right?”

“Not really, though I doubt you can read any of the notes. Half of them are in about…” He did a quick count of some of the pieces of text floating in front of him. “About half a dozen languages.”

Aleksa was floored. “You can read all of those?”

Kolya shook his head, pushing the text and diagrams back into the table. “Not really; my colleague just writes in whatever his brain is thinking in at the time. Trust me. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“Definitely pretty weird,” she said, nodding.

“So, would you like to explain why you’ve come to bother me at work?”

Aleksa placed her phone down on the table, lighting up the screen on the device to show a sequence of numbers printed across it. Kolya opened his mouth to speak, only to have his sister’s hand waved in his face. “I know it’s an IP address, stupid. I’m not that out of the loop on computers.”

Kolya stared down at the phone, then back at his sister. “Alright, so, would you like to tell me why you’re stalking some online friend of yours?”

She sighed and leaned onto the table, drumming her fingers across the smooth, cool surface. “It’s about my friend, the girl I’ve been talking back and forth with the past several months.”

“The one you had your movie date with the other night? How’d that go?”

“Yeah, her.” She pushed the phone towards Kolya. “And the date went… Kolya, I think she’s in love with me. I want to go to her, I just feel like that’s… that’s something you need to do, face-to-face. Plus, I’m worried about her around her sister, and she just seems so unhappy, and…”

“While I admire how much you care for your friend, you can’t just go barging into other people’s homes without knowing what’s going on.” He pushed the phone back towards her, and turned his attention to the stack of framed, translucent tablets sitting on the tabletop. “Even if there is something going on between her and her sister, you could be endangering yourself, too. I really doubt she’d want you to risk your life when it would be wiser to get a professional involved.”

“Kolya, please. She needs help.” She breathed deeply, staring down at her reflection in the table. “I want to be there with her. I want her to know that she’s not alone. And I just… I…” She looked up, hardly feeling the damp of tears against her cheeks. “I just want to hold her, Kolya. I want her to know that she has a friend.”

Kolya sighed, holding one of the tablets in his hand. The device clattered back onto the table as he dropped it down and reached for the phone. “Alright,” he said, opened a fresh window on the table. “Let’s have a look.”

Aleksa smiled and watched as Kolya entered a series of commands into the table, his work dissolving away in a shower of light particles. In its place rose a sprawling projection of the city. She stretched her hand out over it, blinking as her fingers cut through the downtown skyline.

The city turned slowly in front of them, the laboratory’s computers routing through the city’s communications network in search of the terminal attached to the entered address. The map started to shift, the mountains of downtown’s skyscrapers shifting over the edge as the view moved towards the shorter, more industrial buildings further to the east. A blue line traced through the streets, following conduits of data cables, branching onto one subline and then another.

The boundaries of the city’s neighborhoods framed the hundreds of streets, the name of each neighborhood hovering over the buildings. Downtown Crossroads and the newly-affluent Almede District drifted by, replaced by the poorer Stackton District, stretching outwards towards the city’s eastern edge.

The map began to slow as it reached Crossroads’ westernmost streets. The blue crossed through a narrow, dashed boundary within Stackton. There, it weaved through side streets before it came to rest at last inside of a large, open area at the city’s edge. The view tilted upward, showing the destination from the sky, a small window popping up in front of Kolya full of scrolling text.

He was already frowning; now, he looked up with disapproving eyes at his youngest sister. “Would you like to explain,” he said, as cross as he was when she first barged into his lab, “why your friend lives in the 7th Restricted District Bio-Botanical Gardens?”

~

Iriyana buried herself deeper into her blanket, listening to her phone ring again and again. “Shut up,” she said, fingers about to punch through the threads in her sheet as she pulled more of it over herself. “Shut up!’

She lashed out at last, yelling at the phone as the slap of her hand sent the phone flying across the room. The device struck the wall as Deniyana opened her bedroom door, the green-haired naga smiling as she leaned through the doorway. “Well, well,” Deniyana said, glancing down at the cracked display of the phone that now lay on the floor. “Not so in love with your human friend anymore?”

Her sister reared up from her bed, her blanket wrapped around her body like a cape. “Get out!” She said, baring sharp teeth at her sister. Her shirt was wrinkled and spotted with sweat, hair tangled and matted. “Out!”

Deniyana blinked, her tail curling back into the hallway, pulling the rest of her back with it. “I know I don’t care much for all this human stuff in here,” she said, tasting the air in the room, “but even I go bathe in the lake every now and then.”

“Out!”

“What is with you?” Deniyana squared her shoulders, slithering back into the room. “You two have a little spat or something?”

“She’s looking for me.” Iriyana hissed the words, her tongue flitting against her teeth. “She’s coming here.”

Deniyana giggled, licking her lips. “Oh, I like delivery.”

Her scream cracking like thunder across the room, Iriyana leapt at her, her blanket flying across the room as she crashed into her sister. The wall behind them buckled, the painted boards cracking under their combined weight. The two naga slid to the floor, Iriyana landing on top of her sister. Her hands immediately found her sister’s throat, gripping it tightly.

“If you dare,” Iriyana said, her fingers pressing into the flesh around Deniyana’s throat, “if you dare, I will tear the meat from your body with my teeth.”

“My,” said Deniyana, coughing as she gasped for air. “Aren’t you bloodthirsty today.”

“She is my friend, you uncivilized beast,” Iriyana spat the words at her, slowly withdrawing her hands from her sister’s neck. “And I will put her before you, any day, any time.”

“That’s real sweet of you,” Deniyana said, rubbing her fingers over her neck as she pulled herself back up onto her tail. “I’ll be sure to remember that one.”

Iriyana sunk back to the floor as Deniyana crawled out of the room, the green-haired naga’s tail slamming the door shut on the way out. She wanted to see Aleksa as badly as she wished she would stay away. Her world was too dangerous, too wrong for someone like Aleksa. The last thing she wanted was for Aleksa to wade down into a jungle she was utterly unprepared for— a world she wanted nothing more than to escape from, any way that she could.

Slowly, she picked herself up and crawled towards the bathroom, making sure there were towels waiting on the rack before running the shower.

~

“She’s not answering…” Aleksa said, dropping her phone back onto the table. “The one time in the world I need her to… look, Kolya, this isn’t a big deal! Just get me the permission to go into the 7th!”

“No!”

She planted her palms on the table, leaning over it in an attempted to stare down her brother. It was only after the fact that she realized that, even with Kolya slouching in his chair, the two of them were still eye-level with one another. “Can you please just trust me on this one?”

“Look, I understand…” Kolya repeated again, setting his glasses onto the table as he rubbed his eyes. “I understand that I don’t always have the best opinion of Otherkind…”

“You called your boss a vampire!”

“He is a vampire!”

“And I’m sure he has a name!” She thrust a finger at the still-blinking blue dot, centered over the map’s rendering of the Bio-Botanical Gardens. “Besides, you don’t even know if she is Otherkind. She could be human, for all you know.”

“Except that I have all the details of the terminal using that IP address right here. It’s a custom built model from AyaCorp, and it’s about as big as a house.” Kolya forced himself to sit up, leaning his elbows on the edge of the table. “Aleksa, Nexus had the residence that computer was built for constructed for a pair of giant nagas that live in the Gardens. It was a prototype project Nexus piloted to see about improving living conditions for some the gigantic Otherkind living in the 7th.”

He touched a few controls on the table’s surface, causing the map to drop below street level, exposing a wireframe model of the underground complex he was speaking about. “You friend stands about 12 stories tall on her tail, which stretches out the length of an Inner Loop train behind her when she slithers. Moreover, her entire species are known, man-eating carnivores…”

“But she isn’t!”

“How do you know? You didn’t even know she wasn’t human until a few seconds ago!”

Aleksa shook her head. “Look, I don’t care. I want into the District. I need to see her.”

“It’s dangerous! There are…” Kolya stood up and walked around the table, standing beside Aleksa as his sister stared down at the map. “Going into the 7th is very dangerous. There’s a reason why Nexus controls traffic going in and out… there are way too many horrible things that can happen to people who go into the 7th unprepared for the nightmarish shit that lives in there! There are too many things…”

“Kolya!”

“…living there that will take one look at you and see lunch, or a free sex toy, or who knows what else? It might not be her, but it could be any of a hundred other beings that call that hell-hole home. That’s not a risk I’m comfortable with you taking.”

“But it’s one that I’m willing to take.” She frowned and looked her brother in the eyes. “Give me your phone. If you won’t call President Ayatsu, I will.”

“I’m not giving you my phone. Now get…” He blinked, watching her tapping at the tabletop computer. “What are you doing?”

“Calling President Ayatsu.”

“Damn it!” He started frantically entering commands, only to swear under his breath as the computer refused to listen to the both of them at the same time. “Aleksa, stop it! You’re going to damage something!”

“Kolya, I really hope you have a very good reason to call me in the middle of my meeting with President Righton.”

Both of them blinked at the window that snapped open in mid-air. Ryngo was seated at his desk in the President’s office, hands folded neatly on top of one another. He leaned forward, staring at the camera, before settling back into his chair. “Is that your sister? Aleksa, right?”

“P… President Ayatsu,” Aleksa started, at a loss for words for a moment. Actually reaching the ruler of the city, especially directly at his desk, wasn’t what she expected when trying to call him. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t realize you were busy.”

“Kosev-chan, I have the entire universe requesting my attention. I am always very busy.” Despite the clipped tone of his voice, Ryngo smiled at her through the video screen. He was very stately, Aleksa thought, seated at the broad, glassy surface of the President’s desk. It was a far cry from the nervous, anxious man who stood at her brother’s side during the holidays. “So, please, what exactly was your business with me?”

“She doesn’t have any business with you, Ryngo,” Kolya started, trying to speak over his sister. “Sorry to interrupt you and Mr. Righton. I’ll…”

“I need permission to go into the 7th Restricted District,” Aleksa said, shouldering her older brother out of the way. “I have a friend who lives there and I need to go see her.”

“Ryngo,” Kolya said, forcing his way back into the camera’s view, “she has absolutely no idea what she’s getting herself into.”

“May I please be the judge of that? It is my city, after all.” He gestured for his fiancee to step aside, Kolya muttering as he complied with his lover. Aleksa stood front and center before the camera, taking a deep breath as she faced the head of the city. “Kosev-chan, Kolya does have a point. The 7th Restricted District is an extremely dangerous part of the city. There are very important reasons we control access in an out; for the protection of people on both sides of the wall.”

“I understand that, Mr. President. I just want to say…” She felt herself shaking and silently willed herself to keep calm. This was for Iriyana, she told herself. She was doing this for her friend; she was willing to make a fool of herself in front of the most powerful man in the city to help her. “My friend is very lonely, and lives in what— as far as I can tell— is an abusive family. She feels… she feels completely cut off from the world. Don’t get me wrong; being able to talk to someone through a computer feels good. It helps you feel like someone’s out there.”

“It’s another thing entirely, though, to actually have the person in front of you. To be able to feel them, listen to their voice without a piece of electronics in between the two of you. I realize that going to see her could be dangerous, but I accept that. I just want her to know that she’s not alone.”

Ryngo sat silently, listening, his eyes closed as he sat forward with his elbows on his desk. There was a voice audible from off camera— Aleksa assumed it was the Mr. Righton whom Ryngo was meeting with— which silenced itself after Ryngo gestured to the speaker. “Kolya,” he said after several moments, eyes still shut, “where does her friend live.”

“The Bio-Botanical Gardens. One of the naga there…”

“Her name’s Iriyana,” Aleksa said.

“Iriyana,” Ryngo said, nodding. “I remember her.”

Aleksa blinked “You’ve met her?”

“In passing. I try to meet yearly with the Garden’s Caretaker about any needs that have arisen. In any event, I’ll contact Dr. Wehttam about escorting you out to meet her.”

“Ryngo!” Kolya said, slamming his hands down on the table.

Ryngo’s eyes locked through the screen with his spouse. “Do you honestly think I would make a decision that would put your family in harm’s way?”

He didn’t wait for Kolya to answer; the pink-haired man opting to mumble to himself in compliance as he walked away from the camera. Ryngo sighed and turned his attention back to Aleksa. “I’ll have Dr. Wehttam contact you after I finish with my meeting. I do have to ask, Kosev-chan, that the next time you have such an urgent need to speak with me…”

Aleksa blushed. “Yes, Mr. President?”

“…that you clear it with my secretary, first? He’s on the payroll for a reason.”

“I… right. Absolutely, Mr. President.”

“Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my meeting before Mr. Rightton builds something destructive in the middle of the office.” He reached out and closed the connection, the video window filling instead with the logo of the Nexus Corporation.

“I can’t believe that actually worked,” she said, her voice still hushed.

Kolya dropped back into his chair, leaning one cheek against the palm of his hand. “Neither can I. Now, please, get out of my office.”

~

Aleksa stepped back from the kiosk on the street corner, breathing in the steam rising from her cup of coffee. Ryngo sent a message back to Kolya a short time after they spoke, starting that the Gardens’ Caretaker would be there to pick her up in roughly an hour and a half, meeting her in front the office building Kolya worked out of. She walked around downtown for a time, wondering who it was she was meeting; she’d never heard of the Gardens before, and Ryngo did not appear to have the time to mention much about the Caretaker.

“Ma’am?”

Aleksa blinked and turned around, staring at the man who now stood a short distance away from her on the sidewalk. The man was tall, thinner than she expected; his skin was warmly tanned, with dark sunglasses sitting on top of his blond hair. His khaki shorts and green, button-up shirt seemed a right fit for someone who managed what she understood was a nature preserve. “Ms. Aleksa Kosev?” he said, checking the name he had written down on the back of a card before looking up at her again.

“That’s… that’s me, yes.” She nodded, approaching him. “I’m going to take it that you’re Dr. Topher Wehttam?”

“The one and only.” He shrugged and gestured towards the van parked along the sidewalk; the light grey vehicle was painted simply with the Nexus Corporation logo. “Caretaker for the 7th Restricted District Bio-Botanical Gardens, and your host for this little foray into my corner of the world.”

“I really appreciate you coming downtown to pick me up like this,” she said, stealing a glance at the back of the man’s legs. “I hope it wasn’t a problem for you to drive all the way out here.”

He shrugged and opened the passenger side door for her before walking around the front of the van. “Not at all,” he said before hopping into the driver’s seat. “It actually feels nice to get out into the city. I’m afraid I don’t get away from my work very much.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No big deal,” he said, turning the van’s engine over. “Occupational hazard of my job, I guess. You just enjoy getting out when you can.”

Within moments, the car drove across downtown and climbed the nearest ramp onto the Outer Loop. The massive two-tiered highway arced slowly away from the center of the city. “I love what I do, and as much as I wish I could get a day off every now and then, the Otherkind living in the Gardens require constant attention. That’s something of the downside of working with such extraordinary vareties of life.”

She nodded, looking at the tablet sitting on top of the dashboard. Unable to help herself, she picked it up, glancing at the text glowing on its screen. It was a list, she realized, scrolling through with her fingers. Line after line itemized purchase requests for staggering amounts of meat, grain, and fish. “What is all of this?” she said with disbelief.

“Oh?” Wehttam blinked, taking his attention off the wheel just long enough to glance at the screen. “Oh, that’s for the mermaids. They really love their fresh fish.”

“But…” she said, staring at him as she dropped the tablet into her lap. “They are fish. Sort of.”

“And fish eat fish. It’s not really much different than any other part of nature.” His eyes checked the road before looking her in the eyes. “The natural world, the wild world, is called that for a reason, Ms. Kosev. It’s untamed, and doesn’t always play by the rules you might be comfortable with.”

“But you… you live alongside all of them.” She shook her head, staring back out through the windshield and over the edge of the highway. Beyond the curve of the road, she could see the walls the marked the boundaries of the 7th Restricted District. The buildings within the walls looked no different from their counterparts on the other side. “Everyone tells me that they’re dangerous, though, that just going to the 7th is dangerous.”

“Because it is. Ms. Kosev, I’m lucky enough to have the know-how, and the gifts, to help me live alongside the creatures I work with. It’s a wonderful gift, but I realize that without those gifts, I would live in a world of danger.”

The van shifted over a lane, beginning its descent down the ramp to street level. “I don’t want to keep you out of that world. I just feel like you should know what you’re about to step into while you still have the opportunity to turn back.”

“She’s my friend, Dr. Wehttam.” Aleksa breathed deeply, sitting up straight in her seat. “I don’t know what relationships you’ve had in your life, but no matter who, or what, Iriyana is, I can’t imagine leaving her alone in a world like that.”

“I don’t doubt that she’s your friend. But as much as she might try not to be, she is also a man-eating predator. And those are both things you will need to be prepared to live with if you want to be her friend.” He reached down, tilting the phone attached to the dashboard so that he could reach the keypad. “Now, if you’ll give me just a moment, I’ll let her know we’re on our way.”

~

Iriyana waited, a clean tunic laying out on her bed while she sat coiled on a towel in the middle of the room. Strands of blue hair clung to her forehead, curling as they dried. The air in the room, she reminded herself, was carefully regulated. A computerized heating and cooling system monitored the ambient temperature of every room in the underground apartment and ensured that she and her sister’s bodies stayed at an ideal temperature.

The chill she felt was more owed to her anxiety than to the drops of water that still clung to her bare skin.

She looked down at her reflection on her phone’s screen, and frowned. Aleksa was coming, she reminded herself. What would she do when they met? She wondered if the girl already knew she wasn’t human, wasn’t living with a condition that kept her confined to her home beyond being too large to enter the city beyond the 7th Restricted District. Whether she did or not, though, Aleksa would have the truth confirmed soon. And then…

Iriyana shook her head. She had no idea how Aleksa would react. The girl never spoke unkindly about the Otherkind who attended classes on the university campus. She was such a completely different class of creature, though, that there would be nothing that could prepare her for coming face to face with the reality that her friend was a monster.

“I’m not a monster,” she whispered to herself, hands tightening into fists on her lap.

Yes you are, her sister’s voice whispered in her head. You can wear all the clothes you want, study human things and eat dead flesh just as they did. At the end of the day, that voice said, she was a monster that craved warm flesh and blood. Aleksa could love her all she wanted, but how exactly would you cozy up to someone the size of your house?

She shook her head. No, I’m not.

She jumped back when the phone finally rang; it took a moment for her to even register it wasn’t Aleksa’s name and portrait on the screen, but someone else’s. She reached out, taking a deep breath before tapping the button to connect the call.

“I was wondering if you were going to pick up.”

“I’d ask why you’re calling,” she said, her voice low, “but I’m sure I already know.”

The line was silent for a few moments. “Iriyana, I want you to understand that your friend… that Aleksa… is not afraid of coming here. So I’m asking you— no matter how hard it may seem— not to be afraid of meeting her.”

“I don’t think…” she said. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Doctor. Please don’t bring her here.”

“I’m afraid it’s a little too late for that. We’re already through the checkpoint; we’ll be at the park gates in about 15 minutes. If you could meet us at my cabin, I think your friend would be happy to see you.”

“Doctor, please…” She could feel her throat twitch as she tried to speak, hear the sound of her voice trembling. “I really don’t want her to come here.”

“I’m afraid she’s already made that decision. The ball’s in your court now, dear. We’ll see you in a few moments.”

The phone chimed as the call disconnected. Iriyana slowly laid the device in front of her, dropping it when her fingers couldn’t keep their grip any longer. Aleksa was only moments away, the car carrying her into the Garden winding its way through the city streets as easily as she weaved between the trees filling the park.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, enough saliva to fill a small pool, and lifted herself off the floor. If she didn’t go to the surface, Wehttam would bring Aleksa to the apartment himself. That risked the chance that Deniyana would intercept them, and while she trusted the doctor to protect her friend, the mere idea of her sister getting her hands on Aleksa gave her the feeling of a boulder sitting in her stomach.

She took a deep breath and reached for the tunic laying on her bed. It was time to go introduce herself.

~

Aleksa stared out the window, hands pressed to the glass. “Did that tree just wave to me?”

Wehttam laughed, his eyes focused on the gravel road ahead of them. “That would be Larix, one of our dryads. She’s a sweetheart, though we have to be careful when she’s hungry. I’ve had to convince her to put a car or two down over the last few years.”

Aleksa nodded, more than a little uncomfortable with the thought of the giant tree-woman shaking a car’s passengers into her palm, tossing them into her mouth as easily as she might munch on popcorn in a movie theater. “I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm.”

“Oh, of course she didn’t. Still, a dryad is not something you want to be around when their stomach starts growling. It’s hard for them to get up and move, so they take whatever food wanders up close enough to reach.”

“Which, by the sound of it, includes visitors.”

“If they’re foolish enough to wander off without precautions, or if they make the mistake of sneaking into the park after hours? Yes. That can include visitors.”

She turned to him, stunned by how calmly he spoke about people being eaten alive. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“Of course it bothers me. The reality is, Ms. Kosev, I can only be in one place at a time, and I can only do so much to convince a hungry predator that they shouldn’t eat you.” He sighed as the van shuddered to a stop, his hand turning the key to kill the engine. “More often than not, though, the people who find themselves ending up on someone’s menu made a choice that brought them there. I’m not here to make people’s choices for them; I just suggest what might be the better choice to take.”

Each opened their car door and stepped outside, Aleksa pausing as her shoes sunk into the gravel surface of the driveway. The air smelt warm, sweet, filled with the scent of different trees— of trees at all— rushing into her. There was no trace of the city outside through the dense treetops; for a moment, she wondered if they were on another world entirely. The only trace of civilization was the driveway itself, the van, and the rustic wooden cabin ahead of them.

She walked out from the van, stepping down off the piled-up gravel and into the grass. She held each breath in her lungs as long as the organs could manage before exhaling, savoring the feel of crisp air filling them. Her eyes looked through the trees, searching for Iriyana’s face. She wanted to call out for her, but worried that she would only startle her. 

Then, just as the thought left her mind, she saw the shadow moving among the trees, the sparkle of light against something green and polished. She looked back at Wehttam, who only smiled back at her. “Ir…” She turned back, looking into the woods. “Iriyana?”

Two eyes, golden where the light caught them, stared out from between the trees. “Why did you come here?”

“What do you mean, why?” She shook her head, standing in the middle of the open field, looking out towards eyes as wide as she was tall. “Because you’re my friend! Because I just… I just want to be able to hold you, and tell you you’re not alone.”

Iriyana’s laughter, hollow and flat, rippled across the clearing. It lacked the life, the lightness, it had talking about movies and boys in love; it was the voice of someone cowering in fear. “I hate to tell you, but you’ll be lucky to wrap your arms around one of my fingers.”

Aleksa shrugged, offering her arms out towards Iriyana. “That’s still part of you, though, isn’t it?”

She walked closer, the sunlight slowly painting in the shape and color of Iriyana’s body. Her tail stretched out like a wall weaving between the trees, fading into the shadows in the distance. Her arms held the weight of her torso up until her shoulders met branches several stories over Aleksa’s head. “I wanted to know you for who you are, Iriyana. Not just what you want me to see.”

“I didn’t want you to see this.” Iriyana slid back, letting the trees’ shadows fall back over her.

“But I’m here, now. And I see every inch of you. And right now…” She smiled, following Iriyana back into the tree line. “Right now, all I want is to see more of you.”

The two came to a stop, the naga staring down at the human pursuing her. slowly, with arms as thick as the trees around her shaking like rubber, Iriyana began to slither forward again. Aleksa walked back out into the clearing, only coming to a stop when Iriyana stood fully exposed to the sunlight. Her shadow stretched out over the human woman, reaching back towards the van parked on the driveway, Iriyana settling back onto her tail as she wrapped her arms around her. “Aleksa,” she said, lips trembling. “I am a monster.”

Aleksa walked towards her, towards the wall of yellow and green scales the wraped around the mass of the naga’s tail. Her hand reached out, stunned at the cool smoothness of her body. It made sense, she told herself; Iriyana was part snake, as though that weren’t obvious enough.

The naga’s body shifted; one of her hands descended, coming to rest of the ground near Aleksa. She walked away from Iriyana’s tail, slipping out of her shoes and socks on the way. Her own hand reached up, tracing the length of her friend’s arm down to her wrist and palm. The skin was hairless, smooth to the touch. When she finally reached the giant’s hand, she knelt beside her palm and slowly wrapped her arms around Iriyana’s wrist. “I’m not afraid of you,” Aleksa said, resting her cheek against the giant’s arm. “I’m not afraid of this.”

Iriyana smiled, finally feeling her heart start to slow back to its normal pace, muscles shifting and relaxing beneath her skin. “Thank you,” she said in words she hoped that the girl could hear. “Thank you.”

~

It was something, Aleksa thought to herself, to see The Bittersweet of Dawn on a screen this large. It was older, and she’d never seen a screening of it in theaters, so the projector Dr. Wehttam set up for her and Iriyana was definitely a treat. The fact that he’d quietly slipped away to busy himself with work elsewhere in the park while they watched their movie was icing on the cake.

She curled against Iriyana’s neck, perched carefully atop her shoulder as the naga lay with her belly down on the grass. The giant’s neck shifted in response to her touch, pushing back against her; Aleksa looked up just as Iriyana turned her eyes down at her. They looked just as tear-filled as her own were.

“Every time,” she said with a smile. “This movie just gets to me every time.”

Iriyana nodded. “Would… would you want to watch…”

Aleksa shook her head. “We don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

She could feel Iriyana laugh a little. “I don’t really know what I want to do. I’ve never… never had anything like this, before.”

“It’s okay.” She laid a hand against Iriyana’s skin, could feel her pulse somewhere under her flesh. “We don’t have to do anything.”

“Okay.”

Iriyana moved, curling her tail across the grass, careful not to knock either the projector or screen over in the process. The massive limb circled the two of them like wall, while one of her hands reached towards Aleksa, her fingertips careful brushing against her body. “Okay. I… I can manage that.”

~

[ _fin_ ]


End file.
